


Riders on the Storm

by Ryellee



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Destcember (Destiny), Destcember 2020 (Destiny), Developing Friendships, Game: Destiny 2: Beyond Light DLC Spoilers, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, and some are just sad, season of the hunt spoilers, some are wholesome and cute, usually no beta so bear with me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:26:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 6,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28067748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ryellee/pseuds/Ryellee
Summary: My Destcember 2020 prompts hub (at least for those I've managed to finish--).
Comments: 8
Kudos: 18





	1. Exodus [Eris & Zavala]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Please be careful.”

Zavala’s eyes darken with concern when he sees Eris standing in the doorway of his office. Holographic screens projected all around him flood the room with cold blue light; maps, archives, encrypted comm channels, rows and rows of letters flicking past through the air as he shuffles through the files. The night sky behind him is bright from fireworks. 

“I spoke to Ikora,” she says, taking a single calculated step into the room. Zavala keeps their gazes locked for a brief moment of silence, then closes his eyes and nods slowly. 

“What is her take on this?” 

“We have learned so much already. The messages…” Eris dares another step. A firework shot from somewhere nearby explodes and paints her face an orange-pink hue. “We must know why it happened. What’s the meaning behind these attacks.” 

“We’re still assessing the losses,” Zavala turns to one of the screens, where dozens of message boxes all scream ‘NO SIGNAL’. “Scouts are on their way, but all sensors are going wild, communication is off and on…” Shadows creep onto his face when he bows his head, voice weaker, “Still no reply from the outer moons.” 

Music coming from the Bazaar can be heard even with the doors closed, the basses booming through the walls. It is 2:30 AM and the entire City has been in a state of wild ecstasy for several hours now. A series of bangs and shrieks of laughter above make Eris wonder whether fireworks have just been shot from the Tower roof. 

“People are celebrating.” 

Zavala nods again, avoiding her gaze. 

“We are keeping the information confidential, for now.” He glances at the City, blazing with light and flares under the once again whole Traveler. “Let them be happy for a day.” 

The burden of the secret weights down his shoulders, deepening the lines on his forehead as he is looking down upon this tiny scrap of earth that he loves, that seems so much smaller now with the Darkness closing in on them. Every laugh echoing through the walls is like a slap to his face and Eris can well see the pain he is desperately trying to hide. 

“I am leaving in twenty minutes,” she announces. The tension squeezes her guts in an iron grip, and she knows they have wasted enough time already. 

Zavala turns from the window to face her. Their eyes lock; a minute of uneasy silence, a wordless fight. She can hear him saying she does not have to, maybe she ought not to, maybe she should rest – but there is no strength to it, no urgency like there was when she confronted him a few hours before. He gives up. 

“I’ll make sure the ship is ready. Amanda says the energy burst left the navigation systems untouched, but they will double-check all outgoing units—” He breaks off and sighs, his tone almost begging, “Please be careful.”


	2. Thin Ice [Drifter & OC]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Gun is a tool, too. But it’s not much for building.”

Ór returns from the Ziggurat with face paler than the snow. Elsie tries to comfort her with words of encouragement, but she just sits by the fire, staring at her cold hands, and hours pass in silence as the four of them tries to avert their eyes from one another. She knows she should get to Charon’s Crossing before nightfall, but there is no strength left in her, and she stays motionless, legs curled underneath her, well into the evening.

And when Elsie and Eris disappear in the cabin, and only her and Drifter remain under the vast ultramarine sky, she whispers:

“I’m afraid.”

He cocks his head, observing her from under a furred brow. She is still looking at her hands.

“It’s just a tool. Like a knife or a welder. You can use ‘em to build,” he chuckles faintly, “or I’m pretty sure there’re several ways you could kill someone with a welder.”

“Gun is a tool, too.” She raises her eyes to meet his. “But it’s not much for building.”

“Fine, Stasis is a gun and Light is a welder. What gives?”

Ór shakes her head, poking the dying flame with a stick. The radio screeches in broken eliskni, the only sound for many miles, and the signal is so poor she cannot make out the words.  
“My Ghost called me Light,” she says eventually, and knows Drifter is watching her as she stares at the fire, “because it was all I had been back then. And now I’m not even that.”

Drifter sighs, and she wonders if he thinks it’s childish. She wonders if Eris had the same doubts – or maybe she was happy to finally come out of the corner, to wield something, being able to throw herself back into the battle? She wonders about Elsie’s sureness; her, who has seen just how much evil Darkness can cause, and still having so much confidence that this is the only way. She wonders what name her Ghost would give her today.

“Are you afraid you’ll lose yourself?” Drifter’s voice is surprisingly gentle, causing her eyes to flick back to him. “Trust me, it’s not Stasis that’d do this to you.”

“You’re still on about the Warlords. How they had the good pure Light and turned it into a force of destruction.”

He chuckles again and straightens, moving to sit on the ground next to her. His face is plunged in shadow, but eyes reflect the flickering flame.

“Listen. There’s a friend we have. Real pain to be around. Bossy and cranky, one eye extra. Plays around with magic of the nasties species in this damn galaxy.” He gestured at the cabin behind them. “And you know what? She’s still standing. Hive relics in hand, crying liquid Darkness, singing Ascendant portals into being, and all that out of spite. And she’s still on the good side.”

He pokes her gently in the chest.

“If anything’s gonna drag you down the dark path, it’s a lack of decidedness. And you have a whole lot of that.”


	3. Dearest Wish [Petra]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some days she looked at her own hands and wondered if she was real.

_Oh, who decides from where up high?  
I couldn’t say I need more time_

Deep in the Dreaming City, in her personal chambers of amethyst and marble, Petra Venj laid tangled up in blankets, clutching a pillow to her chest. Her gaze was moving slowly across the walls, from the enormous desk in the far corner to the window opposite the bed, left ajar for the night. During the few hours of sleep she managed to get, the Scorn had pushed closer and she could hear their hideous screeching coming almost from her backyard. Beams of a simulated sun danced on the floor.

For the past three nights she had been sleeping in the field, under a canopy of stars that was an artificial skybox warped around an artificial world. She would watch the sky and touch the grass which felt so paper-dry, and a sensation overcame her that the only real thing in the Dreaming City was the dead rock it had been built upon. It was Day five of the Second Week of the cycle, the one she finally got enough sleep to palliate the headache, and she knew it would strike again in two days’ time, just when her corsairs would alert her about the Seclude being attacked. Time was malleable like clay and everything seemed cardboard. Even bullets didn’t hurt as much as they used to.

She felt like an actor, reciting her role over and over against her will. She tried to divert, tried taking different paths or engaging in different conversations, but it never changed the main course, the thread of time running steadily from one pinpoint to another and looping. Ever returning. Some days Petra wondered what would happen had she just left – would the curse follow her? Or would it stay, plaguing her people until they too escaped, because the only solution was to run, exactly how the Witch-Queen wanted?

Some days she looked at her own hands and wondered if she was real.

The overnight appearance of the Cryptolith had not worried her as much as it had been a relief. A palpable evidence of the cycle breaking, an intrusion that slipped through the cracks of a worn-out logic. Petra knew Savathȗn was in retreat, ever so slightly; but still, the hand clutching the Dreaming City trembled, and in that moment of hesitation a crevice opened, just wide enough to squeeze in. Would there be a chance for the Awoken to benefit from this theomachy? Could they use that same crevice to slip out through the Witch-Queen’s fingers?

Petra hugged the pillow tighter, breathing in the scent of linen. It calmed her. The monotony of the curse tricked her brain into some kind of stupor, a rhythmic pulse of existence, but it was far from lulling; her nerves were always strung, a red light in the back of her mind incessantly flashing in alert. Even sleeping offered no comfort, for in her dreams she would often walk the endless staircases of the Watchtower, hearing her Queen’s distant words in a language she could not understand.

Like a child in a house of mirrors, she saw her own face on every corner and wasn’t sure anymore which reflection was her. Some days the fuzz of repetitiveness made it hard to even remember—made it seem as if there was nothing outside, only this dull confusion. She would reach out to her childhood, imagine Amethyst so vividly it hurt, made herself relive the happy times because the pain felt more real than the ground she was walking on. She would think back to her exile. She would recall how good it had felt to be home again, hunting again, chasing treacherous Eliksni throughout the system along with Variks, listening to him hum the songs of old and citing proverbs he alone still remembered. She heard he had been found on Europa—chasing after yet another false promise, a Kell who, in time, would only fail him. She heard he was putting faith in a new Kell now, and couldn’t help but think, with a bit of sneer, that maybe her old friend had been a fool to begin with.

After what had happened, was he still her friend, though? Was he ever? Circling around in space and time, she often wondered what she had done wrong, had she overlooked a shade of darkness in his eyes, had she missed out on something important, a detail hinting at the choice he was about to make. She played back the last weeks, months, searching for some clue, looking at a familiar face and wondering if she had ever known him at all.

Maybe the Witch-Queen was laughing, somewhere from her throne of lies, watching the spectacle in a crystal ball and sipping their misery like a fine cocktail. Maybe she sneered at Petra and her petty worries, or maybe she had found a way to exploit even that and was now feasting upon her doubt and sorrow. Maybe she was like an ahamkara, in a way, sliding into the space between what-is and what-might-be, feeding on her longing, and her wish, and her faltering hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Opening quote from "Too Much Is Never Enough" by Florence + the Machine, a big Petra mood song.


	4. Eye for an Eye [OC, Sagira]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We must give."

“We have to avenge her.”

Ór cocks her head. It’s the first time Runi has spoken since they left Zavala’s office three hours ago. That fateful message still echoes in her mind, nausea swelling up in her throat whenever she thinks of what Osiris must be going through. The terrifying irreversibility of loss feels dry and sandy in her mouth.

“She deserves at least that,” the Ghost continues when she remains silent, his optics flashing angry turquoise as he stares down at the City streets, bright with lamplight and sparrow headlights. “We… we have to track down that _murderer_ , find him, and, and put a bullet in his—whatever the Hive have for a skull…”

“You think this will help?”

The frantically twitching petals of his shell stop mid motion, and he looks at her and blinks, as if woken up from a deep dream. “…help? It’s what _should be done_.”

“So it’s about what’s right.” Ór pulls her knees up to her chest. “A life for a life. We kill the Celebrant for Sagira and the Hive kills us for that. Then some other Guardian goes on to avenge us, another aspiring Hive knight kills them in return, and Xivu Arath collects the tithe.”

Runi hovers in the air, petals unfolded in thought. He looks back to the City.

“It’s the other blade of the Sword Logic,” she continues, watching the outline of his bright shell stark against the evening sky. “It’s how we kill one another in the name of what’s just. How we think we have the right to take, just as the Darkness says.”

“He killed Sagira.” The words are quiet, but quiver with rage and grief. “To let it pass… Not to do anything… He killed my friend.”

Ór holds out a hand and he nestles in it, burrowing into her palm and shivering. Her thumbs stroke his shell gently until he stills.

“Sagira gave her Light to save Osiris. She weakened herself so another could live.” She holds Runi close to her chest, tucking him in like a sleeping baby. “She defied everything the Darkness stands for, that’s why Xivu Arath couldn’t reach him. That’s why, in the end, Sagira won.”

“It’s not fair,” he whispers into her palm.

“Light is not fair. That’s why Darkness hates it so much: it gives recklessly, no matter the circumstances. How did you know if I was worthy of another life?”

It used to be something that bugged her, made her overthink it to pieces until she found there was nothing to unearth, no hidden truth or rule to it. Only a gift.

“I… I don’t know. Light guided me, and that’s how I found you. I assumed it knew better than me.” A blue eye peeks out from between her fingers. “…It makes sense, I suppose. That it doesn’t really have to make sense.”

He flutters up and leans against her forehead, choking on the tears and a particular kind of love that can only be experienced through grief.

“I’m sorry about Sagira,” she whispers with her eyes closed. “But we should not take in her sake. We must look after Osiris now. We must give.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you mean it's January. I don't know what you're talking about, really.


	5. Nightmare before Dawn [Eris & Osiris]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe there is nothing that could ever be adequate. No bandage large enough for the wound, only this furious triviality of companioning.

Eris approaches with the careful steps of a Hunter, stopping just on the edge of shadow the darkened hull of the jumpship provides her. The hunched silhouette in the pilot seat is at arm’s length, navy-black against the backdrop of stars behind the windshield.

“I’m glad to see you again, old friend,” she says softly, reaching out her hand to put it on the back of the seat—hesitating—drawing back.

The silhouette twitches, glances back over the shoulder, then turns his face to her in semi-profile. Lit scarcely by a few blinking controls on the dashboard, it looks old and sick, with long shadows under the eyes and wrinkles forming dark, jagged lines across the forehead.

“It has been too long, Eris.”

There is no change in expression, but his eyes light up ever so slightly and he gestures to the passenger seat next to him. It is big and comfortable, and Eris slides into its soft plush like into an embrace.

The ship is anchored at the outer side of the Tower, oddly dark without the Traveler and city lights, and for a moment it seems to her that if she only reached out, she could comb her fingers through the Milky Way. They watch the stars in joint silence.

“Forgive me I haven’t replied to your letter,” he speaks up first, his voice hoarse as if after a long night of screaming. Eris shakes her head.

“Do not apologize, Osiris. I understand the gravity of the position you had found yourself in.” She slides her hand across the edge of the dashboard, a pointless gesture, only to feel the texture of it under her fingertips. “Savathȗn has yet to come out of hiding. As a matter of fact, I worry it is her Xivu Arath is truly after.”

“We may get caught in the crossfire,” Osiris mutters, and she can tell by his absent gaze that his thoughts are elsewhere.

She wishes to offer comfort; she truly does, her fingers stretching out towards his shoulder and once again retreating, but she knows she cannot possibly relieve him of this burden. The knowledge alone rips her heart open. He is so desperate in his silence, eyes shifting, searching, lips sealed tight into a narrow line not to let any choked-up words through. Had he wish to speak, he would; she is willing to listen. Yet no words of her own could ease the suffering etched into his furrowed brow, and Eris can only watch as he bleeds it all out until the wound heals. This road he must walk alone.

After Wei’s death, she had not known how to talk to Eriana. There had been no words jagged enough to describe her pain nor soft enough to alleviate it. She had held her shivering body in arms and stroked her head, and wondered how the ground is not splitting apart at the sound of her wail, but she had not known what to say.

Lying in the hospital bed, with Ikora holding her hand in silent reassurance that was furiously not enough, she did not know either.

Maybe there is nothing, she thinks, watching moonlight slip through the fringe of Osiris’ hood and paint his face in streaks of silver. Maybe there is nothing that could ever be adequate. No bandage large enough for the wound, only this furious triviality of companioning.

She reaches out and puts a hand on his shoulder. Osiris closes his eyes, huddling himself and letting out a trembling sigh; there is such vulnerability in it, and sorrow, and gratitude.


	6. Tyrant [Rasputin]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For now, he thinks, for now, he will rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only after uploading did I realise I messed up Prompt #6 and Prompt #8 (both words start on T and my dyslexic brain imploded), so I'll just roll with it and Prompt #8 will be Triad. I'm sorry for the confusion ;o;

The universe is so much smaller now, with his ever-present eyes disjoined and stranded to rust on distant planets he can no longer see. He feels blinded.

The world emerges in flashes, scatters of picture and sound through others’ senses: shaky vision from a Ghost’s optic, fragments of code jammed into him through luminous tendril-cables, signal picked up via a prototype frame he was plugged into as a test. Anastasia has given him access to Tower surveillance cameras, but he is too disjointed to process the data. Scraps of him rattle around the orange dodecahedron like pieces of a broken toy, chaotic and incoherent, and his mind is split into million little slices all shoved messily into a tight space. His innumerable arms used to spread out into the system like soundwaves, but now he has just enough room to keep those still left close to his chest.

His thoughts are heavy and sluggish, squirming in the dense orange marsh and whispering, whispering, because he has got no strength in him to speak up. He feels tiny and fragmented, dizzy from the impact, blacked-out by the sudden strike of wires catching on fire, data boiling in his mind to the point of melting through the casing, a thousand blades cutting through his lines, snipping them off like veins bleeding code. Now it is thick and dim and hazy, and he grabs at what he can trying to make sense of the flashes and screams but his mind is drifting lazily in the sludge. He is tired. He is afraid.

He feels small.

For now, he thinks, for now, he will rest. Stilling his weltering synapses and looking out into the haze, weary eyelids fluttering closed, pulse decelerating. He will wait in the dim orange womb and allow his shattered code to restore itself, weaving the gentle texture of mind back again over tattered threads. He had been fractured, once. He will grow whole again.


	7. Beyond Stasis [Aunor & Shin]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Is the Praxic Order compromising?”

There had never been a worse time to be a Praxic Warlock.

Aunor _seethed_. Seethed when she read the reports, seethed observing Guardians hurling icy walls around the Crucible like kids playing snowball fight, seethed when she overheard people throwing stones at Zavala for his so-called cowardice and close-mindedness. She had to take a break from work to go to the gym and punch some stuff after spotting the Drifter in the Tower for the first time since his return from Europa; he had flashed her the most shameless grin and she was within an inch of knocking all his teeth out.

She used to revere Eris Morn. Both for her knowledge and bravery, as well as out of compassion for what she had been through. But the further she pushed the line between Light and Darkness, the more doubts popped up in Aunor’s head. She knew Eris was strong; balancing on the edge of the sword, tapping her fingers in Hive magic to rip them right into the Hive’s heart, she had touched the evil and tamed it long before Aunor even came to be. But not everyone was Eris Morn. Each day brought another Guardian who had dared too close, coming back dark-eyed and wild, their Ghost shuddering or weeping or, worse, corrupted as they were. Apocalyptic thoughts plagued Aunor as she sat by hospital beds, watching them bleed out the corruption through eyes and mouth, some screaming in horror as nightmares were twisting their brain. Each day was another record in the notebook, another Guardian gone dark or missing, another team sent out to keep an eye on Crucible matches or track the spoor of corruption leading out into the wild.

It was a beautiful morning, the sun hanging low over the horizon and shining through the skeletal branches of trees shedding their last leaves. The woods were within half an hour’s walk from the City walls, and Aunor enjoyed the autumn breeze on her face chasing away the frown she had been unknowingly wearing. She made her way to a clearing, now almost indistinguishable amongst the barren trees hadn’t it been for the hunched figure of Shin Malphur. Sunlight reflected off his helmet, making him seem strangely radiant even without the flames of his Golden Gun. She stopped a few meters away, and acknowledged him with a nod.

“Someone’s coming home.”

“The City has never been my home.” He took the helmet off and ran a hand through the auburn mess that was his hair, not smoothing them down in the slightest. Aunor had not seen him for only a few months, but it seemed during this time he’d grown even frailer. Sunken cheeks and circles under the eyes, cape tattered at the edges and stitched clumsily around the shoulder blades, lips dry and chapped; he was shaved clean, though, a detail clashing with his haggard appearance like diamonds with a tracksuit.

“Sightseeing, then?” She put her arms on her hips.

“Lately the Crucible is a sight to behold.” Malphur was examining one of his gloves; eventually he squinted, took out a knife and snipped a loose thread. “I heard you’re running out of bed space.”

Aunor scoffed, “Are you here to free some of it?”

“If it’s necessary.”

Malphur was still looking at his gloves with feigned interest, and she stretched the silence long enough for him to finally turn his eyes to her.

“I’m not gonna pretend I could outrun you. But if your final goal has not changed, then it aligns with ours.” She nodded slightly as if to stress the words. “I propose… cooperation.”

Malphur shoot an eyebrow up but held her gaze.

“Meaning?”

“No one can chase the Dark so well without falling themself. And we need eyes in the wild. You’ll be free to hunt the corrupted as long as you spare the Ghosts, and we will make sure these Guardians can’t endanger anyone. Including themselves.”

“You’re sticking to ineffective methods.”

Aunor clenched her fists, lighting fizzling on the tips of her fingers.

“Sometimes I wonder if you’re simply killing for the _fun_ of it.”

He glared at her, weary eyes behind the unruly mass of hair.

“What makes you think you can save them?”

“We already are.” She stared into these weary eyes boldly, her voice sharp. “We both know the situation is getting out of control. The enemy is infecting our ranks and soon will tear us apart from the inside. You’ll never hunt them all down alone, and we’re not gonna make it any easier for you. If you’re true to your cause… we need each other’s help.”

Malphur’s lips quirked ever so slightly, “Is the Praxic Order compromising?”

Aunor crossed her arms, shooing away the sudden thought of compromising his face. “The rules haven’t changed.”

“The rules mean nothing in a lawless world.”

“Oddly, you sound like the Drifter.”

She revelled in the grimace that twisted Malphur’s features at the words. “Hire him to hunt down problematic cases if you’re so keen on extending your contact list,” he sneered, sheathing the knife still in his hand. Sunlight flickered on the blade. “Come to think of it, when he was herding them into a neat little paddock, I recall you tried to take him out.”

“If all you’ve got are condescending remarks, I’m going back to the City. I’ve wasted enough time.”

“Not that much in need of eyes in the wild now?” He called after her when she started to turn away.

“ _What a jerk_ ,” Bahaghari murmured in the comms, and Aunor held back a smirk. Oh, he was. But try as he might, in his stupid, douchy core he was still a Hunter; and by the rules of Darwinian evolution, the one trait all Hunters shared was their wild hatred of being ignored.

She walked away, leaving Malphur alone in the clearing just as a stray leaf landed atop the bulk of his stupid hair, then plopped to the ground.

* * *

Ten hours later a letter was already sitting on her desk, neatly folded in four and unsigned. Aunor supposed physical messages were much harder to track, but she would gladly appreciate them typed rather than scrawled in inscrutable handwriting.

“ _Fine, have it your way. Disastrous effects are bound to surface after a month, but have it your way. 7000 Glimmer a head._ ”

_Well, can’t have everything_ , she thought, blessing the eternal vulnerability of a Hunter’s pride, and folded the note.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know how Shin is, he has to have the last word.


	8. Triad [Eris & Drifter & Exo Stranger]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We’re not strangers anymore, are we?”

Elsie eyed the lemon, its skin a pretty shade of emerald green with occasional specks of white.

“I don't think that’s edible.”

“We’re short on supplies and you’re gonna sniff at a good lemon?" Drifter protested, snatching the fruit from her hand.

“It's hardly a lemon now.”

"You don’t even have taste buds.”

Elsie crossed her arms, “As a matter of fact—”

“I found a camping stove,” Eris cut in, her head poking out the cabin door, “but there’s no gas.”

“A gas stove?” Drifter whistled. “That thing’s _old_.”

“Maybe we could find some in Eventide.” Elsie walked up to her to have a look. “Throw it at the ‘Useful’ pile.”

They had been fearing looking into the dark corners of the cabin long enough. This morning they dragged everything that was moveable out and proceeded to delve through countless drawers and lockers, astonished by how much could be stuffed into such tiny space. Elsie had not felt the need to do it before, but now with Drifter’s tools and weapon parts, and Eris’... stuff, the cabin suddenly became difficult to move around.

“We really need to stock up on food, though,” she said, examining the ‘Useful’ pile which was growing at a horrendous pace. A momentary concern overcame her as to where in hell they would put all of this.

“Told you I’d share,” Drifter called from behind her, and a horrible sound of bone and chitin cracking told her enough. “Your choice, kid.”

As the smell of scorched Hive flesh itched her artificial nostrils, Elsie allowed herself a moment of hesitancy. Was gathering them here, so close to the temptation’s core, a reasonable action? Would she be able to keep them in check and control how far behind the veil they would reach?

—Not control, she reminded herself. She was only just learning how to unclench her fingers and let the current wash through them in its own course. Life was delicate, brittle like glass; too many times had she ground it to dust in her panicked grip. She had no way of knowing how many times the cycle would repeat – until she got it right? What if the ruin came in a different manner, the ending altered but still just as disastrous? This was her desperation, a furious hopelessness, that called the Drifter and Eris Morn to Europa. A risk she had never taken before; sometimes she wavered, her thoughts swirling wildly as fear arose, whether by that she had hauled them all right into the abyss.

Eris was wise with that old-soul wisdom of a survivor, the whole of her fragile frame a story of anguish and persistence. She did not speak much. Rather listened—her hands inconspicuously busy stringing beads or carving, but eyes wary like a hunting fox’s. Even through the layers upon layers of hurt and ugly-cicatrised wounds, she was a warrior – swift and silent like death itself, ever scarier by the relentlessness of her character and clarity of cause. And Elsie was finding herself, time and time again, unable to see her through plain and honest eyes, free of the burden of knowing what she would have become had the circumstances been different. What she still—oh the horror—could still become.

She was catching herself searching for some early signal on Eris's face – any trace of deception behind that gauze – and quickly drawing away in panic, fearful that through her mistrust, she might trigger just that.

The Drifter? Oh, he was a master of acts. Perhaps better than Savathȗn herself, or at least a decent opponent. He juggled his many masks as easily as he flicked the coin, and even after all this time of knowing him in so many different realities, Elsie was still learning his ways. He was putting on the face of a jester – always laughing her off with a purposefully annoying smirk, putting his feet on the table and hiding behind that opaque wall of mockery. Testing her. But she had known him enough times to see through the jeer in those blue eyes, to notice how they darkened with fear whenever he let his guard down; how his hand flicked to the holster at every startling sound and how he never slept when there was just the two of them in the cabin, Eris keeping the watch outside.

He and Eris were tentative co-workers, at lest this time around. An unlikely pair – Elsie remembered them teaming up in merely one cycle, and only until Eris treated the Drifter to a knife between the ribs. This time, their interactions usually boiled down to rattling each other’s cages. (And they were both smart and insufferable, and knew just where to strike.) But there was something else, too. A fondness in the twilight, creeping around Drifter’s eyes and in Eris’ gentle movements; how she kept his nightlamp on because he was afraid of waking up in dark and tight spaces. How he never cut in when she talked about the Hellmouth. How they shared tools and weapons, and how sometimes, sometimes, Eris’ lips even quirked a little at his terrible jokes.

They circled in odd orbits, both full of hurt and fear and rage. Elsie could not help but wonder whether she was truly any different.

Eris walked out of the cabin and made her way to the campfire through the labyrinth of bits and bobs cluttering the ground. Her nose crinkled at the smell of Drifter’s dinner, but she did not comment.

“How’s the cleaning, sister?” Drifter threw a gnawed-up bone into the fire and reached out for another piece.

“I found a box of ground coffee deep in one of the shelves. While I am not a cryptoarchaeologist, I assess its age as fifty to sixty-five years old.”

“Could be worse. Maybe hasn’t lost all the flavour yet.” He shrugged, biting into the crusty meat and continuing with his mouth full, “I borrowed your pot, by the way. Tried to make a stew, but the blood caught on fire, and… you know. May taste a lil’ charry.”

“I explicitly did not allow you to touch my tableware.” Eris chided, then reached out a hand in a demanding gesture. “Give me some.”

Elsie watched them crunch in silence from her usual spot a few steps away, until Eris cocked her head and three green eyes met two icy-blue ones. A hand gloved in thrallskin touched the ground beside her hesitantly, “Would you sit with us, Stranger?”

Drifter’s eyes rose from the meat he was wolfing down and the three of them watched one another for a long while.

“We’re not strangers anymore, are we?” Elsie walked up slowly to the campfire and, sitting down between them, added, “My name is Elisabeth.”


	9. Blooming gardens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They raise their eyes and ask me, is there a life after this life?

They raise their eyes and ask me, is there a life after this life?

A desperate plea for comfort. Sometimes I read it from their faces; hunched over a body too broken to fix, watching the wounds bleed helplessly and forcing half-goodbyes through quivering lips. Spitting the injustice out like poison, because it is unfair, unfair, there are so many others, there are children laughing in the streets and couples falling in love, why in this world when so much is bright there must be the body in the grass, bleeding and dying, it is unfair—

They ask, watching flowers wilting, is there a place without destruction? What if there is not—what with the birds and stained glass and sunsets, what with butterflies and first kisses, why the torture of having all this beauty yet knowing it is but a song on the wind, echoing, then gone forever—

Thanatonauts leap off cliffs and wonder, will they be the ones to find out? What is the point of afterlife, they ask in free fall, when life is already a renewable resource and death merely an inconvenience? Have you, o life-restorer, devised a way more lasting than the Light, frail and fleeting in Lunar corridors, more enduring than a Ghost’s shell at gunpoint; have you concocted a fallback, in case you, yourself, are not enough?

Connecting dots on the great pinboard of knowledge, they have figured out so much already. Kneeling by a body in the grass, bloodied and cold and unmoving, they have figured out almost everything.

For the game is existence and the board is infinite. But what is beyond the board is the domain of the player, and the box is always unlimited possibilities. The box is a garden of eternal return, where myriads of flowers sway gently to the beat of the fine-spun song of creation; where branches bend under the weight of fruit, swollen and pulsating with life. Water falling from the clouds sinking into soil evaporating wreathing into clouds again – each cycle unique, each alike.

They ask, as moss and vines climb up the tombstone and squirm into cracks, questions about loss and love and forevers. Did you value them, they cry, did you love them enough to keep them from falling over the edge of oblivion, would you catch them with your lustrous hand? Why did you let them go, why would you invent a world where only so many things die, oh if the treacherous road truly leads into nothingness, how could you be _good_ —

They fall silent as the first autumn leaf drifts through the air and falls onto the marble.

I had slipped into the empty garden, obscure and hollow with ruin; every trace of that primordial latent energy had long fled through the cracks into the newly-born universe. And so it could, once again, be anything.

They ask, lips sore from goodbyes and fingers twitching, aching for something familiar and lost – is there a place of reunification? Is there a home where all is found, a kitchen of childhood scents and dried flowers, a long-forgotten face lighting up with a smile as you run into the arms that held you before your fickle mind has learned to remember?

Sometimes I see it in their eyes; in a final flicker of consciousness, as their limbs sag and voice falters – a gleam of recollection. And I know they have now seen it, too.

That the garden is no longer empty.

**Author's Note:**

> All promots are posted on my tumblr @flowers-of-io too! Main title is from The Doors of course, it's the song that first came to my mind when I thought about a phrase capturing the overall theme of this year's prompt list.


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